Lookbooks

Monday night a swellegant crew of fashion insiders, bloggers and students gathered in the scenic salon space at Bumble & Bumble in the Meat Packing District to hear a panel discussion on “Technology and Fashion Week”, hosted by Fashion GPS.

Fern Mallis introduced the evening with a hysterical rundown of what fashion week used to be like and how it is today. Our favorite moment was when she revealed her biggest pet peeve, “People who hold up iPads to take pictures at fashion shows!”. We couldn’t agree more. 

Moderated by Parsons’ fashion school dean Simon Collins, the panelists included EIC of Style.com, Dirk Standen; Jenne Lombardo of Milk Made; Peter Levy of IMG and Rachna Shah of public relations and production firm KCD. After everyone was loosened up from Svedka cocktails and Voga wine the panel kicked off. Here are some of the highlights:

The customer is now the buyer. Should designers make collections that do translate easier online? Social commerce is what is driving sales. - Jenne  Suzy Menkes once wrote a glowing review of Balmain and a poor review of Balenciaga. But then when she saw Balenciaga online it paled in comparison to what Balmain looked like online. So there really is something to be said about being at a show compared to judging looks online. -Dirk   People think that shows are irrelevant these days but in reality this is the time twice a year the designers can really bump up their branding and they use those images for the rest of the year, not to mention the buzz from the actual show. -Rachna London Fashion Week has done such a great job at making themselves relevant with their branding and social media. There is a lot to learn from their recent retooling. - Peter  You have to have a strong sense of business to be at Milk. We have to see growth potential and you need to exhibit that growth. There are too many designers out there. I am a big fan of content - put money towards films and other smaller ideas before doing a show. - Jenne